Wednesday 24 October 2012

When the Private turns Public



Social media is an opportunity for us as individuals to be part of a global community, giving us a chance to have our own voice and feel as though we are more than just one in a billion.  Through social media, such as Facebook and MySpace, we are able to document our lives or as Ander Albrechtslund describes “[cyberspace] offers the opportunity to construct an identity beyond bodily presence.”  As we move into a technological age where social media is common for all individuals and organizations, we struggle with our online versus our offline identities, and how they connect with our public and private personae.  In Albrechtslund’s article, Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance, he discusses the prominent use of social media and how its presence in society affects individuals’ right to privacy.
Albrechtslund states that persistence, and ‘the invisible audience’ can characterize social media.  The idea behind social media being persistent is simply that what you post will never be erased; it will instead stay with you to be later judged by ‘the invisible audience’.  The ‘invisible audience’ not only includes your friends and family but potentially everyone who has access to the Internet.  When reading a post in Hana’s Blog titled, Social Media and the Fine Line between Public, Private and Personal, she explored the same concept, that once you post something online you are never able to retract it.  She also described her own experiences with social media, stating that she is very conscious of what she is posting and how it will be perceived in the future. Unfortunately, not all of the population is so careful in their posting, as adolescents post their lives and experiences online with little thought to their privacy or the implications their comments and photos can have.  Organizations and employers now have access to their employee’s past, and with the organization’s image on the line, people’s online past can negatively impact their offline future. 
As a recent example in the news today about the effects of privacy on one’s public and private persona, we can look to the tragic death of Amanda Todd.  Amanda was a girl who, like many of her age of 15, was starting to explore her womanhood and unfortunately leaked a topless picture of herself to a male online.  The photo was then circulated online and as a result, she endured cyber bullying, which ended with her taking her own life.  Her tragic situation is one of many examples of adolescents whose actions at the time were seemingly harmless, but later came back to haunt them in a way that could not be escaped.  Her online public persona became what everyone knew of her and as much as she tried, it followed her offline self.
 We are often uneasy about the amount of surveillance the government places on social media and individuals’ social relations, political views and religious beliefs that are easily accessible Facebook or Twitter.  The government uses surveillance to control the online users but also to protect.  In the case of Amanda Todd, surveillance of social media was helpful in locating and identifying those who contributed to her cyber bulling. As social media rapidly becomes a part of Western culture, the government needs to use their control to educate adolescents about the implications of social media and the importance of privacy settings. While we may not enjoy the idea of our privacy being compromised, with social media the only privacy you have is what you do not share online.
http://www.vancouverobserver.com/life/technology/facebook-culpable-amanda- todds-death


Wednesday 17 October 2012

Personalities Online and Offline

Is the presentation of self and the online persona the same? Or do you pretend to be someone else? Does it make you into that person?

As much as we try to consider the two the same, the presentation of ourselves and our online selves is not quite parallel.  In all fairness people want to be perceived in a certain way and through online media, people are finally able to construct themselves how they want the public to perceive them.  You can be anybody you want to be online which empowers people, giving them a chance for their thoughts and opinions to be heard.  This can sometimes differ from how they are offline.  I do not think people are necessarily pretending to be someone else, but theres a difference between writing your opinion online about a specific issue in the public sphere and standing up and speaking out to a different kind of public.  People use social media to hide their insecurities while displaying their positive features and ideas.  No one posts online 'for themselves' because that defeats the purpose, we post online so other people will notice and consider what we have to say, so obviously what we say is targeting what we think people want to read.  We all want the option to be the best versions of ourselves and through online social media, I think people strive to show the world that version.  Although it may seem that we 'become' the people we are online, I still believe it is the other way around.  We are who we are but through social media, we are able to display ourselves and our lives exactly how we want the public to perceive us.  Our online selves are the sugar coated version we want everyone to remember.




Wednesday 3 October 2012

Media Controlling Culture


As our society continues to progress in the technological era, our media has more and more control over society.  After reading the article Rethinking Convergence/Culture, it is evident how our culture in the present is rooted strongly in ‘new media’.  With such control, the media can now relate messages to the masses and subliminally or not, we are affected by these messages.  For example the article brought up the issue of gender relations within the media. Gender stereotypes are re-enforced through advertising, television, and movies keeping men and women confined to the media’s perceptions of how men and women should act.  Companies such as Dove that support a healthy body image for women, are owned by the same company as Axe for men, which portrays women as typical “bombshells” in skimpy attires.  This shows how media is controlling our social culture for a profit.  In the blog post Is there a Downside to New Media? social media is outlined as a new form of media that gives the voice to the people allowing them to give their opinions and respond to others; an 'open ended conversation' with the public. In another blog post entitled Why New Media? Emily Young addresses this emergence of social media and questions it’s relevance. She claims that people are able to express themselves freely but most have nothing of importance to say that will make an impact.  While people are completely entitled to their opinion I can’t help but agree with her, if half our new media is controlled by corporations trying to make a profit, and the other half comes in the form of the masses’ uninformed opinions then what solid truth is coming from media?



http://jodirubin.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/our-media/
http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/axe-deodorant-lawnmower-6014105/